The Mens College Baseball World Series Begins Today and The Florida Gators Could Win The Whole Thing!

The Men’s College World Series gets underway on Friday at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska.  The Florida Gators will play tonight at 7pm on ESPN against the Virginia Cavaliers.  More on this matchup later in this post.

Five of the eight teams in this year’s field have won a national championship while TCU, Tennessee and Oral Roberts are seeking their first title. The last time five previous champions were in Omaha was in 2021 … when Mississippi State won its first title.

The SEC has three teams in the field, the sixth straight time they’ve had at least three teams in Omaha.

The ACC has a pair of teams in Omaha, including No. 1 national seed Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons broke one drought in returning to the Men’s College World Series for the first time since winning the title in 1955.

Now they’ll try to break another by becoming the first top seed to win the title since Miami in 1999.

Oral Roberts is the third regional 4 seed to reach the Men’s College World Series since the current tournament format was adopted in 1999. That’s the equivalent of a 13 seed or lower reaching the Elite 8 in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  Here is the full tv schedule.

Florida’s Jac Caglianone (31) leads the nation in home runs, a total that ranks second in SEC history (only LSU’s Brandon Larson had more with 40 in 1997).  I spoke about this kid yesterday on the Shemon and Sheppard Show.

The left-handed hitting Caglianone has shown all-fields power: seven of his home runs have gone to left, nine have gone to center and 15 have gone to right.

Florida leads the all-time series 5-3, with five of those games coming in the NCAA Tournament. Virginia took two of three meetings in the 2015 MCWS on its way to winning the national title and the teams split two meetings in the 1985 Coral Gables Regional.

Florida head coach Kevin O’Sullivan is a Virginia alumnus; he played catcher for the Cavaliers in 1990 and 1991. He was also an assistant in Charlottesville from 1996-97.

Virginia is 28-0 against non-conference opponents this season. The Cavaliers are the first team to enter the Men’s College World Series without a loss to a non-conference opponent since Arizona State in 2010 (30-0). The Sun Devils went 0-2 in Omaha, losing to Clemson and South Carolina.

The Cavaliers lead Division I with a .335 batting average and 169 doubles this season. Virginia has hit 16 more doubles than any other team in the nation (Coastal Carolina, 153) and 28 more than any other MCWS team (Stanford with 141).

Remember Keith Hernandez on Seinfeld ? Why do I ask? On this day in 1983, the St. Louis Cardinals traded the first baseman to the New York Mets. This historical fact reminded me of one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes where Hernandez guest starred on the third season of the show. The episode parallels the investigation of the Warren Commission's investigation into the JFK shooting by trying to figure out which baseball player spit on Newman and Kramer from the grassy knoll after a Mets game. Also, at the time this episode aired, the Oliver Stone movie "JFK" hit the theaters.

Overall, I think this episode of Seinfeld is top two or three all-time and it helped the show take off for the rest of its run. Ironically, this show was one hour as opposed to the usual half hour. Producer Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld were not sure if Hernandez could act so they wrote a long episode in case they had to cut Hernandez's part out in the editing room. However, he did great and the show became an all-time classic.

Today, we will do Keith Hernandez on Seinfeld trivia during Wiki-Pete-ia on the Shemon and Sheppard Show on ESPN Southwest Florida. We play everyday at 4:45ish. Be caller number nine at 239-337-3776 or 239-337-ESPN and play to win. If you can't get through on the phones then play at home or at work and impress your family and friends with the questions and answers below. Good luck!

-Craig Shemon
ESPN Southwest Florida